Thursday, January 07, 2010

Who will fill the vacuum?

One good reason for not having retired Archbishops in the House of Lords is Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, sometimes he talks sense, often not. Whatever he says is presented as opposition to the present incumbent. Recently he has been speaking about Islamic immigration. Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, the outgoing Archbishop of Prague has been saying similar things, maybe a little better:

“if Europe doesn't change its relation to its own roots, it will be Islamized.”
“Europe has denied its Christian roots from which it has risen and which could give it the strength to fend off the danger that it will be conquered by Muslims-- which is actually happening gradually,” he said. Muslims “easily fill the vacant space created as Europeans systematically empty the Christian content of their lives.”
“At the end of the Middle Ages and in the early modern age, Islam failed to conquer Europe with arms. The Christians beat them then,” he added. “Today, when the fighting is done with spiritual weapons which Europe lacks while Muslims are perfectly armed, the fall of Europe is looming.”

I can't help feeling that what both Archbishops are forgetting is that foreign immigration is actually necessary to the economic survival of Europe. The contraceptive, anti-family policies of all European or Western governments mean we are not reproducing ourselves, there is population vacuum. We actually need immigration to maintain funding for government spending. Who, if we don't have immigration at its present levels, will fund pensions for the elderly; let alone military and healthcare spending?
It pays governments, who always in a democracy, have a short to medium term view, to import adult workers who have received their education abroad, paid for by their own governments. Our universities too, are in a large part subsidised by foreign -often Islamic- students.

Cardinal Vlk said that “Neither the free market nor freedom without responsibility is strong enough to form the basis of society". Long term we have to make a choice as to what is the basis of our society. I fear Muslims with exploding underpants and footwear but they are the exception. I fear too the underlying racialism that lies behind the statements made by many Christian leaders. I am convinced that what we need to fear far more than Islam is anything which creates a void in western culture. The void, the weakness, that is most obvious in the west, is children and reproduction. Abortion and contraception, the anti-family mentallity is our great enemy, not Islam.
Our aging population needs to be replaced, if the native population won't do it, who will?

33 comments:

Sweden has about 15% immigrants. Those who have come from mostly Catholic countries have integrated well and nobody objects to them, whatever the colour of their skin. So when the same people become concerned about the impact of some other immigrant groups they cannot be dismissed as racists.

The wrong sort of immigration has brought real and intractable problems, especially when there is an active refusal to integrate with the host country, even to the extend of not bothering to learn the language.

Fr: I cannot help but take issue with your defeatist rebuttal of the Archbishop (the other one isn't really an archbishop canonically). We are now living in a situation where churches in Belgium are now occupied by Moroccan immigrants (with the go-ahead of that bastion of orthodoxy Cardinal Daneels). We will soon be heading for a situation where Christians will be living in a dhimmitude under the black flag of the half crescent. How much more longer will people bury their heads in the sands and live for "fear of offending" before the horrible truth finally catches up with them.

Islam aims to make the whole world come under the itself - which is why dialogue with Muslims is rather pointless. They do not regard us on the same level and neither should we theologically regard them as well.

I do however agree that Europe has slid into oblivion with its abandonment of the true faith in large parts of the continent. Alas, these can only be the expected results of the Protestant reformation.

Both Father and the Archbishop are right in their own measure. The secularisation of Europe has led to a collapse of the birth rate among the native population to levels from which no civilization is ever known to have recovered.

This is linked in no small measure to the availability of easy divorce, abortion and contraception, and to the increasing unavailability of jobs which pay enough and last for long enough to enable men to support a family.

It is the Muslims, not the secularised native Europeans, who are having children at rates sufficient for replacement and increase.

It's a safe bet that the extinction of the native European stock - in physical/racial terms - is a done deal.

What isn't yet a done deal is the extinction of Christianity and the European culture founded upon it. The key would seem to be the conversion of Muslims to Christianity in sufficient numbers to sustain it.

I agree with Sirian commentIts time to wake up and be counted before its too late. We have to uphold the christian belief. This cannot be dismissed as racist. We pray to Jesus who is the saviour of mankind. Wwe must pray for conversion.

But I think the west SHOULD shut down immigration from Islamic countries, unless the individual is a persecuted Christian - you rightly cite our western "cultural of death" on the unborn, and the contraceptive mentality -- but commiting suicide faster is not the way to go. If you need immigrants, at least be UN"politically correct." If you need more population, at least look to the Christian countries. PC is getting us killed, from the inside and the outside.

I remember seeing a chart somewhere about the political situations with "X" percent of the population as Muslims -- it's frightening what happens. a few percentage points and "no big deal" but as they start reproducing and getting a bigger and bigger percentage in the country, rights get eroded, sharia goes into effect and the Muslims start penalizing Christians and persecuting them, and start shoving women into real hell holes.

The HELL with PC -- our own governments are killing us with this attitude. People need to start having children and stop listening to the ZPG and statis types -- wake up and smell the coffee.

"The right sort of immigration"; "...dialogue with Muslims is rather pointless"; "I think we SHOULD shut down immigration from Islamic countries"; "Those who were defeated at Poitiers, at the gates of Vienna, and at Lepanto are not."(the right kind).

Whether Muslims are our allies or enemies is more than a little problematic.

Many of our allies in the fight against al-Qaeda are Muslims, including the father of the young Nigerian who tried to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day. Many of our allies in the fight against abortion and for family values are Muslims.

As any of the Coptic community will tell you, the reason they're here is that Muslims in their home countries persecute them and have a propensity to murder anyone who abandon Islam for Christianity or for anything else. Islam in these countries structures society, and it is at that point - at which it usurps the prerogative of the Catholic religion - that the problems start.

Muslims who persecute and murder as aforesaid are not men of conscience, but criminals as well as the enemies of Christians.

It's true that at least some English universities rely very heavily on funds from foreign students, some of whom even attend to their studies. And it's true that the native English have been persuaded to consider children as a burden. But even so I disagree very strongly that foreign immigration is necessary to the economic survival of Europe, or at least of the part with which I am most familiar, and I don't think you should feel that way.

I read Cardinal Vlk's comments elsewhere, and I thought they were applicable very well also to England.

So the older generation have destroyed Britain just so they can have an nice retirement, and you think this is a good reason to allow the Islamisation of Christendom?

Let the Ponzi scheme that is state pensions end, let taxes be reduced on the young, those people who had children and raised them right will be cared for by them, those who refused to make such a sacrifice can reap what they sow.

But instead the younger generation have been ensalved by their elders in a desperate attempt to avoid the consequences of their actions.

The thing that created the void is not lack of children it is lack of religion, lack of the Catholic Faith, its very easy to blame others but the truth is we are failing as Catholics to shape the culture, most of us aren't even trying.

Where are the order of preachers preaching these days because I have never bumped into them preaching in any major cities.

Catholics are invisible in Britain, and even if they weren't all people would hear is shallow sentimental words about how God is love and the sound of awful seventies hymns on guitars.

Britain is falling apart as a result, we as Catholics are responsible because we have failed to bring God to the people of Britain, we have not even been trying to convert Britain, after all that would be "sheep stealing" wouldn't it?

We MUST begin once again practising the spiritual works of mercy. Zeal must cease to be a dirty word and the Athanasian Creed must stop been hidden away like it is somethign to be ashamed of.

When confronted with the necessity for industrial expansion on a large scale Japan relied upon automation, while the West absorbed immigrants. The latter process was far cheaper and the consequent social problems could be left to the future. We could have followed the Japanese route and not having done so are now facing the problem of unassimilable minorities and the danger of,as in India, communal strife. Appeasement of the demands of what is to Britain a very new minority, plus the lack of will in active defence of Christianity, can only result in takeover by the strongest and most resilient creed.

Alban - perhaps the Good Lord weeps at those who delegate Him, God Incarnate, to the position of a prophet (who according to Mohammed's night journey looks much less like Abraham than does Mohammed).

Since the so-called Enlightenment, there has been a battle for the soul of Europe between Christianity and Secularism, with Secularism, in the last forty years clearly winning. The resulting self-centredness amongst Catholics as others, has produced the native population crash. The vacuum as always will be filled, and Islam - and its strategic thinkers, for they do exist, intends to fill it. To think otherwise but naivity. I sometimes wonder why they bother to use bombers. Unopposed occupation of ground,as at present, should see them in a majority in several European countries within fifty years.

We as Catholics and Christians are now fighting a war on two fronts and against equally formidable enemies and we are not doing well. I for one cannot see the way forward, although I have no doubt the Holy Spirit does, since Christ's Church will prevail.

I am not convinced Father by your comments on the need for immigration. With official unemployment above 7% and the real figure much higher, there are plenty of hands available to man the pumps.

Now the expectation is that all adults are in fulltime paid employment. 30years ago over 40% of the population spent a considerable amount of time in childcare - out of the employment market and housing living cost matched it.We have become slaves to the market economy.

Yes, it is house prices. Though really it is the price of the land that houses are built on. A house costs about £70,000 to build. Spread out over 40 years, that is very affordable.

Everything has been done to pump up land prices. In the mid-1960s, building societies started to take wives' incomes into account. House prices promptly doubled, and after that could not be purchased with the average income of one wage-earner. This was entirely predictable. It forced women into work whether they wanted to or not, with all the implications that had for family life.

Government policies since then have all been with the aim of bolstering land prices.

I agree there is a big problem with the birth rate. But there has to be a sensible immigration policy, which doesn't cement dechristianization. You see, the secularists are actively using Muslim immigration to attack Christendom from within. All the movers and shakers in my global corporation's "diversity" machine are either gay atheists or Muslims. The latter are using the former as their useful idiots. The former don't understand that they're being used.

Let's encourage millions of Poles, Filipinos, Brazilians and Mexicans to come and help our retirements. And roll back secularism.

Fr. Ray, we have plenty of illegal alien Mexicans who'd be glad to go to the UK, if they knew where it was.

As long as you are willing to put up them having to pass the phone to 18 different people in the house to the five year old, so he can answer the question "Is Pablo home?" [This after some 20 years being "in country.]

But at least they won't, as a general rule, try to kill you for religious reasons, [even though something like a THIRD of the prison population in California are illegals from Mexico - not for being illegal, but for grand theft, rape, murder, and verious and sundry other reasons.]

Oh, and "only" 7 percent? Here officially, in the US -- unemployment is TEN percent, [Thank ou voters of Barry "head hacker pieces be upon him" Soetoro] though people with half a brain know it's much higher, some people having run out of even extended unemployement bennies - not to mention all the owner/operators who've gone out of business. Who aren't counted in the stats. Obamanistas are so proud of their "dope with chains." and it will only get worse if Princess witch with a capital "B" Pelosi and Harry "should be in jail" Reid cram Zero's death "care" bill through.

And isn't it funny how when the government is prevailed upon to bust an employer for having "400 jobs that Americans allegedly won't do" 4000 show up to apply once the illegals are tossed. [I bet you get the same thing too...,.]

And Alban: I guess your philosophy is B.O.H.I.C.A. Sad.

On the plus side, Protestants are finally figuring out that perhaps the Crusades, after all, had they been sucessful, been a GOOD thing, and they've been off our butts about it.

Most of my job involves me being on the phone 90% of the work day speaking with small business owners - so I know whereof I speak.

It seems to me that with the exception of Alban contributors here have forgotten the Biblical commandment to welcome the stranger.

Physiocrat talks of something called "the right sort of immigration", whatever that is and goes on to assert that the "wrong sort of immigration has brought real and intractable problems," though he doesn't care to say what these are, other than, perhaps, that handful of people who resist fluency in the English language. He must be talking of many Britons, in fact, given that standards in the English language among many of the purest Anglo Saxon ancestry are as bad as they've ever been.

Independent clears up the confusion by asserting that Poles are the right sort of immigrants whereas those defeated by Jan Sobieski are not. What does he have against Turks, for heaven's sakes? We wouldn't have divans without them.

I joke of course. What Independent objects to is non-Christians, specifically Moslems, hence the reference to famous battles in ages past. Not all Turks are Moslems, incidentally. There are Turkish Jews - the descendents of those expelled from Spain when Ferdinand and Isabella in fit of religious fanaticism decided they couldn't tolerate any non-Christians in their lands - and there are a great many Turkish Atheists and secularists who hanker for the days of Ataturk. Does Independent include the non-God brigade in the list of right sort of immigrants, or is this all about skin-colour?

Gemoftheocean sings in chorus. She seems to have discarded her previous enthusiasm for small government like so many old clothes. What kind of megalithic government apparatus of the sort which would ban - ban! - immigration from Islamic countries (like Turkey, yes?) would she like to see? And would this be subject to a popular vote or what? I think at the very least, those whose ancestors were in America to greet the Mayflower should be given the power of veto.

In a remarkably incoherent comment she rails against the culture of death on the one hand and then says how frightened she is by Moslem demographics on the other. Now which is it? Does she want more children in the world or not? Policies designed to engineer higher birth rates in one section of the community over another are the property of mad dictators which result in mass sterilisations of those deemed unfit, or unworthy. They are everything to do with competitive fertility anxieties and nothing do with Pro Life. Indeed it is precisely this sort of thing which Pro Life has always fought against.

I was going to reply to Michael Petek's second contribution but then I saw his first one and thought better of it.

Mr Petek made the following jaw-dropping comment:

"It's a safe bet that the extinction of the native European stock - in physical/racial terms - is a done deal."

There really is no point attempting to have debate on a rational basis if the other person is lifting ideas from Der Sturmer.

Independent, Physiocrat and Gemoftheocean weigh in with yet more comments - and quite how they manage it I don't know - each more facile than their original contributions.

Physiocrat bemoans land prices. That's his second favourite bugbear, after blaming all sorts of intractable problems on Moslems.

And Gemoftheocean scrapes the bottom of the barrel with some shamelessly racist rubbish about Mexicans. Yes, racist. Cap fits, wear it and all that:

"we have plenty of illegal alien Mexicans who'd be glad to go to the UK, if they knew where it was ... cont for 94 boring stereotypes"

Does she think she's funny or something?

With the exception of Alban and Father Ray, the comments on this post are some of the most revolting I have ever seen. That they are made by Catholics, on a Catholic priest's blog is frankly shameful.

VL: I pray for the UK - IT makes me sick to think if things keep trending the way they are demographically, whther or not 75 or 100 years from now Westminster Abby, Westminster Cathedral, St. Paul, and thousands of other Christian places in the UK will be either bulldozed, or given the white washed Hagia Sophia treatment.

Maybe your Tourism people should start a "Come to the UK -- see it while it's still here" campaign.

When the top 10 names list includes "mohammed" - you will be in deep trouble.

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God.(Leviticus 19:33-34)

Not all Moslems are terrorists now anymore than all Irish people were Provos in the 1970s.

Red Mary - not all Moslems are terrorists but what are they meant to make of these passages from their holy book, which they learn by heart? What are we supposed to make of it? Hate lierature or what?

What authority has ever asserted that they are hust metaphor?

KORAN

2:190-193 Fight in the cause of God, those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for God loveth not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out

2:244-245 Then fight in the cause of God, and know that God heareth and knoweth all things..

4:74-77 Let those fight in the cause of God who sell the life of this world for the Hereafter, to him who fighteth in the cause of God, whether he is slain or gets victory, soon shall We give him a reward of great (value).

4:95-96 Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of God with their goods and their persons. God hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home).

5:51 O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjust.

5:72-73: They do blaspheme who say: "God is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship God, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with God, - God will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrongdoers be no one to help. They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One God. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them.

8:37-39: In order that God may separate the impure from the pure, put the impure, one on another, heap them together, and cast them into Hell.

9:5 But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (trick in war for deceiving and outwitting the enemy).

9:14 Fight them, and God will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame, help you (to victory) over them, heal the breasts of Believers

9:20 Those who believe, and suffer exile and fight with might and main, in God's cause, with their goods and their persons, have the highest rank in the sight of God: they are the people who will achieve (salvation).

9:29 "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and his apostle nor acknowledge the religion of truth of the people of the Book (the Jews and the Christians) until they pay the Jizya [tax on non-Muslims] with willing submission and feel themselves subdued."

9:41 Go ye forth, (whether equipped) lightly or heavily, and strive and struggle [fight in war], with your goods and your persons, in the cause of God. That is best for you, if ye (but) knew.

9:73 O Prophet! strive hard [wage war] against the unbelievers and the Hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell, - an evil refuge indeed.

9:123: O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that God is with those who fear Him.

25:52 So obey not the unbelievers and fight strenuously with them in many a strenuous fight.

47:4 Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks;

48:29: "Those who follow Muhammad are merciless for the unbelievers but kind to each other."

21. 60:4: We have renounced you; and enmity and hatred is begun between us and you for ever, until ye believe in Allah alone

66:9 O Prophet! make war on the infidels and hypocrites, and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their abode! and wretched the passage to it!

Red Mary - and this is from the Hadith, the other set of sacred writings.

How is this a religion of peace?

1:13-- "I have been ordered by Allah to fight with people till they bear testimony to the fact that there is no God but Allah."

1.24 "Narrated Ibn `Umar: Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers"

1.25"Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle was asked, "What is the best deed?" He replied, "To believe in Allah and His Apostle (Muhammad). The questioner then asked, "What is the next (in goodness)? He replied, "To participate in Jihad (religious fighting) in Allah's Cause."

19:4294 "Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war."

1:35 "The person who participates in Allah's cause (namely, in battle). . will be recompensed by Allah either with reward or booty or will be admitted to Paradise."

9:4 "Wherever you find infidels kill them; for whoever kills them shall have reward on the Day of Resurrection."

Sahih Muslim 4363: "You (the Jews) should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle and I wish to expel you from this land (Arabia)

Sahih Muslim 4366 Narrated by Umar ibn al-Khattab. Umar heard the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) say: I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslims

Gemoftheocean, I will pray for you that you will see that your sentiments are in error.

It is a gross libel on British citizens of the Islamic faith to suggest that all of them wish to abolish religious freedom in this country and bulldoze churches. I tell you plainly that they do no such thing.

It is absolutely the case that the overwhelming majority of British Moslems are peaceable and faithful to Britain. British citizens of the Islamic religion are just that: British citizens. They are faithful to this country and many have died for it.

I'm proud of our Moslem citizens. If it weren't for many of their ancestors, people like me - some of whose family members perished in the camps - would not be alive today. They fought and died for my liberty. I will never forget that.

"If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them."

And what about the numerous instructions from God to His people to smite this and smite that? And what about the cursing of Ham and his descendants in the Old Testament used together with St Paul's acceptance of slavery in the New Testament by all Churches until ooh, the 18th Century to justify the enslavement of people of African origin in the Americas? One might ask by that same token how is Christianity the religion of love?

The point is this: any muppet can do proof-texting to demonstrate anything. Richard Dawkins has made a fair bit of money from the practice.

The quotations pulled out of the Hadith at random which supposedly show that Moslems are an inately aggressive group of persons - and how good is your classical Arabic, out of interest? - remind me of the grubby scribblings of 19th Century anti-Semites who'd pull out quotations from the Talmud supposedly showing that the Jews were inately dishonest, disloyal and morally corrupt. St Edith Stein had to labour on a book to correct the lies and prejudices about Jews in the 20th Century.

Volpius Leonius, delighted if you can furnish chapter and verse and even better if you can do so in the original Greek. Then perhaps you could tell me what you mean by those who reject Christ. I understand that St Peter once did so and so did St Paul until the scales fell from his eyes.

By the by, how do you square your Islamophobic sentiments with the Lord's commandments to love your neighbour, or do you intepret that as meaning your neighbours only in the literal sense of the word, as in people who live adjacent to you?But what about Jesus' observation that what ever you do to the least of his brother you do to him? Or do you think that the Lord doesn't include Moslems in that number?

What really fascinates me in all this is the bizarre paranoia about Moslems in Europe. More than one commenter here has made hysterical reference to the Islamisation of Europe, as though the existence of Mosques mean that the Lords Spiritual have been ejected from the upper chamber and the coronation oath reworked to include references to Mecca.

The Lord bade us to go forth and make disciples of all nations. Some of the hard work has been done for us since the many nations have come to us. Instead of bemoaning something which doesn't exist (Islamised Europe) why don't you go and convert Moslems to Christ? Or have you such little faith in your powers of persuasion?

The other suggestion around all the moaning about Moslems is that Moslems are somehow other, that they are doing dirty underhand things.

Well let me tell you how the overwhelming majority of Moslems live their lives: they wake up in the morning, if they are devout they pray, feed and clothe themselves and then go out and produce masses of surplus value, in other words they go to work. Then they come home, eat, maybe pray again, possibly watch television, read books or surf the net and ... that's it. End of. They are ordinary working people and much the same as you and me.

And you know what else? The surplus value they produce oils the wheels of the welfare state which we all rely on. Go to your GP? Moslems have helped paid for that. Meals on wheels? They've paid for that too. Local authority leisure centres? Yep, they've paid for them as well. Your pension, my pension, everyone's pension, Moslems have paid for them as well.

Instead of complaining about Moslems we should be falling over ourselves with gratitude that they are here. "Welcome, brother or sister, my fellow descendent of Abraham. Your presence here brings me great joy." That's what we should be saying to Moslems.

Red Maria - The bible is meant to be interpreted according to the teaching authority of the Catholic church. There is a hierarchy of texts, in which the New Testament takes precedence over the Old, and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church decides what that interpretation should be.

According to Church teaching the kind of sins referred to in Leviticus 20:13 would exclude the sinner from Communion, but would be dealt with through the process of Repentance, Confession, Absolution and Penance. The Catholic Church would not have anyone put to death for such a thing.

Since the bible is the book of the Catholic church, it has the authority to interpret.

At the Reformation, Protestants went off and did their own thing with bible and as a result there are some bizarre interpretations put out by some of the odder sects,

Red Maria - are you suggesting that the quotations are wholly inaccurate? Perhaps you could provide corrected versions?

I had a copy of the Koran given to me by Muslim missionaries. The (presumably accurate) translation of that was in the same general vein, though verging on the incoherent, to the point that it resembled the dreamy rantings of someone with a psychotic illness.

This is not a matter of prejudice against Muslims, it is concern about what they appear to believe and commit themselves to. No authority ever says unequivocally that these texts are meant to be taken metaphorically or provides corrections to what is certainly disturbing in translation. And yes, you are right, we should be praying for their conversion.

Physiocrat, what you are doing with the quotations from the Koran and Hadith is proof-texting.

A hierarchy of Biblical texts? Perhaps. But I believe Jesus Christ said that until heaven and earth disappear not one dot, not one little stroke is to disappear from the Law until all its purpose is to be acheived.

Of course the Bible should be interpreted by the Church's Magisterium. That much is obvious to us. But then you wonder about Islam and who is its supreme authority. One might ask the same question of Judaism and I wonder why you don't.

Which Rabbi's interpretation of the Law is the most authoritative, which is the Supreme Beth Din? The answer is that they don't exist; two Jews three opinions. But so what?

What's your point? That due to a few bloodcurdling passages in the Koran - there are similarlly bloodcurdling passages in the Bible - Moslems are more likely to be aggressive, less likely to integrate and generally cause nameless but real and intractable problems?

I submit that your reasoning is faulty. You haven't provided anything in the way of evidence to buttress your claims - and some proof-texting doesn't cut it I'm afraid - neither have you referenced any peer-reviewed literature or excluded other possible explanations for your claims. What you are doing, therefore, is merely articulating the latest fashionable bigotry. Once it was Jews who were the target, then Irish people, then African Caribbeans. It's derivative, I'm afraid. I've seen it all before.

Gemoftheocean, we can pray for each other and feel so much the better for it.

How you reconcile your professed belief in small government with your desire for a huge government apparatus specifically dedicated to keeping Moslems out, you haven't cared to explain. So tell me, how do you do it? One or the other.

Actually I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "big government" but I'm not sure you do either. One deduces that when you rail against big government you are railing against the most minimal of welfare states. You confuse transfer payments and modest social security provision with big government, though the two are not the same.

Somehow transfer payments, social security and a national health service, which concept I gather infuriates you, result in people being made wards of the state. Though what the chain of causality is from a) a welfare state to b) a supine citizenry again, you haven't cared to explain.

You see Karen, it's all very well lifting ideas from right-wing shockjocks and the like but unless you can explain them you give no indication that you grasp the arguments.

Your wild-eyed Islamophobic rhetoric gives cause for concern; you speak of Moslems being imported, as though they are goods, not human beings and you insist that they should be discriminated against. However, you are not in the position of determining America's immigration policy and thankfully it is unlikely that you ever will be.

Your ideas may have some popular appeal in parts of Alabama but I doubt that Americans will flock to the banner of Jim Crow; it was dismantled in the 60s and isn't coming back.

No one can fail to notice the hatred you bear your President and commander in chief. An irrational and quite extreme thing, it manifests itself in foul and violent language.

An entry on your blog in December is typical of your sentiments - you expressed the wish that that "arrogant SOB" as you sweetly referred to President Obama would "break his own damned neck". How you have the nerve to call yourself Pro Life when you openly wish an unpleasant death on someone is beyond me.

Countering the ignorance which declares that Obama is either a "closet Marxist" or a "closet Muslim freak" or possibly both is difficult.

Red Maria - Call it "proof-texting" if you like, but those quotations need explaining, especially in the light of subsequent events in which for hundreds of years they were taken very literally indeed. The Profit may have been a holy man but his acts were those of a bandit and warlord rather than a man of peace, which makes him unique amongst the founders of the world religions.

To refer to Judaism is what-aboutery and does not answer the question, but it has never been a problem to anyone to the point that they appear to have gone placidly to the Holocaust, so the issue is not of concern. As a matter of fact, however, there has always been a handful of recognised authorities with Judaism, who are in agreement on core matters.

Here in Europe, there seems to be a determination amongst small numbers of Moslems to actively challenge the host community and its values. In the UK this is perhaps justified because the country is participating in unnecessary and aggressive wars against two Moslem countries, but one that cannot be said of the Scandinavians which have similar problems with some of their Muslims.

Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia, et ubi ecclesia vita eterna

Pray for Francis our Pope, and for the Church of God

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Comments may or may not be published. The choice is made on the spur of the moment and is purely arbitary. I do not necessarily agree with all comments published but they are published in the interest of debate. If you object go here.